The Academic Minute features professors from top institutions around the country, delving into topics from the serious to the light-hearted, keeping listeners abreast of what's new and exciting in the academy.

An Inside Higher Ed webinar featuring Patricia Lynott -- provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Southern New Hampshire University, an institution that is among the pioneers in competency-based education -- on how competency-based education could change many institutions, and not just those that build entire programs around it.

In today’s Academic Minute, Rice University's Justin Denney describes the connection between social status and the likelihood of death in a preventable accident. Denney is an assistant professor of sociology and associate director of Rice's Kinder Institute Urban Health Program. Find out more about him here. A transcript of this podcast can be found here.